


Ground Fire

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 15:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16518980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: Agatha and Ricimer knew what they saw, those men. They saw some kind of sad pheasant, some shaking game bird, without even the prettiness and elegance of any respectable cock's bright feathers. A prey animal to be hunted down and devoured."I don't have any money," she tried, eyes flitting around desperately.





	Ground Fire

"Agatha, we're _late_ \--"

"I _know!_ "

"--What _was_ that thing--"

"I _don't_ know!"

"A clank? A clank with a -- ow!"

" _Ow._ "

"... We're late!"

"You fly ahead then!" Agatha whimper-snapped, holding her head. Ricimer's talons tightened onto her shoulder; after a second he started preening at her hair, crooning his little rusty, broken song.

They were both so distracted they didn't see the man in the alley until Agatha collided with him straight on.

"Oh, sorry!" she apologized, cringing with embarrassment. "Sorry, I didn't see--"

The man grabbed her elbow, smiled through his beard. He had on some military uniform and a massive brown rat on his shoulder, only a few inches from Ricimer. "Whoa, whoa there."

Agatha leaned back, blinking. He didn't let go. 

"Why, I think my arm's right clean broken! Now who's going to pay for the doctor, huh, little Miss?"

What -- oh. Oh, damn it.

There was another man behind him in the alley, flailing himself up with a bottle in hand. At his side a terrier dog watched with her ears and tail up in hunting alertness. 

Two soldiers. Predatory daemons.

Agatha and Ricimer knew what they saw, those men. They saw some kind of sad pheasant, some shaking game bird, without even the prettiness and elegance of any respectable cock's bright feathers. A prey animal to be hunted down and devoured.

"I don't have any money," she tried, eyes flitting around desperately.

The man with the rat only smiled wider. 

"Aww, not even a bit of change?" the man with the dog wheedled.

She committed the mistake of turning to look at him -- and the other one slipped around her.

Then he tore her locket from her throat, crowing... something.

Something.

Ricimer screeched, taking flight; Agatha whirled, snatched the bottle from the other one's hand, swung --

Something flashed in the corner of her vision, a bright spark of light in the dim alley, and her first thought was the actinic blue of the odd apparition in the street a bare moment ago.

Then an impact to her face sent her whirling to the floor, stunned.

"Hey!" the other man shouted. "Hey, no, she's a civilian, and she _missed_ , drop it!" 

"Oh, I'm going to drop _something_ \--"

"Do you remember what they do to criminals in this town? _No_. Let's just go already--"

No. Her locket. _Her locket_.

"Don't you _dare_ ," she said, rising to her knees, "take a _single step_ from--"

The man with the rat was sneering at her, but the man with the dog was staring at Ricimer.

 _Good_. Distracted, he would -- the bottle weighed different now -- oh, _broken_ , well, _that_ was al _right_ , she could _work with that_.

"... Is your daemon smoking?"

"What's going to be _smoking_ is your bones after you _cook to death in Doctor Beetle's jars!_ " she snarled, jumping up to her feet, and swung. The men flinched away from the sharp edges aiming for their eyes. Good. They _should_ fear her, they should--

And then Ricimer dove on the rat with claws and beak -- trailing little, unmistakeable, _flames_.

Agatha panicked. 

Charging the man bodily, she shoved and scratched at his face, forgetting the bottle. Her daemon was on fire -- her daemon was on fire! She needed -- enemy, trapped -- needed to _escape_ and save him and --

"Locket!" Ricimer screeched.

The locket glimmered brass and sunlight against the flames. Ricimer dove; snatched it off the ground -- and she snatched him with both hands and took off at a gallop right back up the alley. Cloth tore noisily but she yanked free -- _fire_ \-- people, safety -- _fire!_

"Fire!" she screamed as she burst at a gallop into the street; her sudden headache blinded her more than the sunlight. The morning crowd dodged away from her, daemons cowering; she tripped onto a street storyteller's tips jar, landed flat on her chest and stomach with her daemon still held up between her hands, and her elbows smarted. 

"--Trough!" the panhandler yelped, pointing, and, nauseous, half-blind, breath knocked clean out of her, Agatha heaved herself up on her knees and dunked her daemon in the horse through nearby.

Phew. She sobbed once, relieved, then she pulled him out. He blinked back at her in total confusion, drenched and ridiculous.

"Um. Agatha?"

"You were on _fire_. Ow. How did you not _notice_ you were on fire? What -- what even _caught_ you on fire?" Ooh. _Ooh, wait_. "Did they _do something_ , did they have a _lighter_ \-- they _dared_ , they _caught you on fire_ \-- I'm _going to hunt them down and **cook them in a giant pan!**_ "

Held between her hands as she knelt by the trough, still dripping, Ricimer puffed his feathers up in echoing anger.

A cloud of smoke poofed free, and then the feathers of his crest sparked alight.

Agatha dunked him again.

"... Um."

"... Right."

That... wasn't possible. There was nothing on him that should ignite after being so wet. She carded her fingers through his crest, but there was no residue, and... 

The feathers were whole. Their usual grey-brown, dull bristles, the paler shaft...

The lighter shaft. Dull but brightening as she stared, like a translucent syringe slowly filling with lava.

It seemed to pulse in rhythm with her headache.

"Miss? You okay?"

Right. The storyteller. "We can't stay here," Ricimer said, throwing glances at the crowd slowing down to watch them as it passed. "The men could--"

"Ricimer," she retorted, impatient and dizzy, still catching her breath, "you _caught on fire_. You're _still_ catching on fire."

He clacked his beak impatiently, shook her hands off his side and flapped his wings to get the water out. "Well then, better catch on fire _in the forge_ , wouldn't you -- they're in the alley," he added urgently. "We need to go."

He hopped out of the trough, one foot still clenched around the locket. Agatha didn't have time to fiddle with the links, so she shoved it in her pocket.

God. He was right. They were still watching. Were they going to follow? Oh no. Oh no, what to do. Her mind was blank.

She needed help.

"We could... Get to the university. Doctor Beetle would sort this out."

"Too far. They'd get us first."

There was one thing Agatha and Ricimer agreed on, no matter how down they got -- they didn't think Adam lost to Mister Tok in his ability to keep them safe from riffraff. "Alright. Home, then -- then we can get Adam to escort us to Doctor Beetle?"

"Sounds good," Ricimer said hesitantly, and perched on her shoulder.

Her sleeve on that side was half torn out. She fingered the gap dully, bleak with sudden exhaustion and helplessness.

"Right. Back home. Oh, Doctor Merlot will be so angry," she moaned, turning to retrace her path home. "I didn't even warn them. I'm going to be so, so late."

Ricimer huddled against the side of her head, neck craned to keep watch behind her, and tried to coo a soothing song. 

It didn't really work. He'd always had the voice of a rusted-through weathercock.

\--

Adam and Polly found her at the kitchen table, maybe a half-hour later, walking in from the forge to... Maybe get a drink, or a snack, or something. She was sitting with a salad bowl full of water in front of her, Ricimer sitting in it, surrounded by smoking, ember-holed newspaper. A trail of darkened pockmarks lined the way from the front door. 

Watching Adam wordlessly, she lifted her hand from the table. Under her palm was the locket. She didn't break eye contact as Ricimer started smoking again; after a few seconds the edge of his feathers lined with little yellow flames.

"Oh, Ricimer, chickling," Polly lowed mournfully, and pushed her way past Adam through the door. She lowered her head to nudge at him; flinched when a flame jumped from his crest to her nose.

"It doesn't burn Agatha, so it shouldn't burn you either," Ricimer informed her absently. "If it catches onto something else, though, _that_ can burn her. I wonder if I can control that." 

Adam and Polly traded a speaking look; then Polly nodded her huge, horned head and turned back to Agatha, looking as worried as a cow-bison could.

"Give Adam your locket, we'll fix it," she said urgently. "It'll be okay. Who saw? What happened? Tell us everything, please, we can fix this but it's of the utmost importance that we fix it _fast_ \-- oh, Lilith, Hector!" she called out suddenly over her shoulder. "Kitchen!"

" _Polly_ ," Agatha ground out, and massaged her temples with both hands. Her head still rang and pulsed with every flash of light, every louder sound.

It was duller now though, no longer the bright slice of being stabbed. Instead she just felt like she was getting kicked in the head. A clear improvement.

"Oh. Sorry, sweetheart."

Adam rested his big hand on her back. Agatha drew in a shuddering breath, rested her forehead in her palms.

She knew what would happen if she touched the locket again. She'd experimented. After the seventh times in a row it started not to feel like a coincidence at all.

It also started to feel worse every time, the see-sawing of bright nausea and dulled sleeplessness.

"Agatha? What are you doing here -- oh, _no_."

That instant horror in Lilith's voice. That immediate fluff of red and black feathers on Hector's whole body, the way his raptor eyes widened with shock, fixed on the flames dancing on Ricimer's crest.

"So I've learned a couple of things," Agatha started before they could. "The fire is _of_ him, not _on_ him."

"That... Yes."

"He's not a pheasant. He's a phoenix."

"... Yes."

"To be precise," Polly added gently, "he's a Carpathian Inferno Firebird. They escaped from the laboratory of Professor Agenor the Deranged a century ago and established a stable population in the Tepes volcano range, where they--"

Spark-made, construct daemons said a lot of varied things, but there was a single, absolute point of commonality.

"You knew."

Her head lanced with bright pain, a warning; she lifted her head anyway, met her mother's eyes, her father's. Ricimer stepped out of the salad bowl, dripping for all of two seconds before all the water poofed off him in white vapor.

"You _knew_ I was going to be a spark, and _you knew what the locket did to him_ , and it _hurts_ every time I put it on and take it off _and what does it **do** to me_?!"

She slammed both hands down on the table, Ricimer hissing at her side with his wings spread low and his long tail pointing up, wafting heat and smoke. 

"Agatha, sweetie--"

" _Shut **up** , Polly! You won't--_"

Lilith's rough palm tapped her cheek -- not hard enough to hurt, but stark enough to make noise, to shock her out of her building rage. 

"Right," Lilith said dryly. "I'm sorry we didn't talk to you sooner, but this is urgent, Agatha. How many people saw you?"

"I--"

"Ricimer?" Hector asked, hopping down onto the table to groom Ricimer's long crest with his hooked kite's beak. He was so small next to Agatha's... Not a pheasant. God. 

Ricimer _wasn't_ a pheasant. _They_ weren't a pheasant, a shy game bird who couldn't even fly that well, something that needed to run and hide, that...

They weren't that? But they were such a mousy, snotty _mess_.

" _How many people, Agatha._ "

"I don't know, I walked back from... The butcher's shop, on Prince Mihail street? I -- I was attacked by soldiers, they tried to take my..."

Her hand lifted to her neck, clenched into a fist before it could touch the bared skin.

"I got it back--"

" _I_ got it back," Ricimer interrupted, "but then she grabbed me and dunked me in a horse trough, so I'm pretty sure people are going to remember us. The street was busy. Why?"

"Right." Lilith worried at her thumbnail with her teeth, scowling at the floor. "So rumors will be spreading. You're staying in for now, we've got to get things ready. I'll go and see Doctor Beetle straight away. If he can't squash it we're going to have to leave town for a little bit."

"But why?!"

Agatha flinched by habit as she raised her voice, but the pain was weak, barely an afterthought. Lilith regarded her sadly, Hector still trying to groom at the coolest of Ricimer's feathers.

"Agatha... Girls with the spark just _disappear_. Villagers, Fifty Families -- they break through and then they're _gone_. Nobody knows why. You can't be out as a spark until you can keep yourself safe, and right now, you can't. So nobody can known. Do you understand?"

"... I guess. But how did you know...? I mean. The locket was... I was so young, Ricimer wasn't settled, how...?"

Lilith and Adam exchanged a look. "Well -- both of your parents were sparks, for starters. So was your Uncle Barry, and your mother's father..."

"Well, that's the first time I hear you even knew my mother even _had_ a father," Agatha replied waspishly. "My grandfather was a spark?"

Polly flicked her ears nervously. "Well. Actually both of your grandfathers. Possibly your maternal grandmother as well. And one of your aunts on your mother's side--"

Her grandparents. Her _aunts_. She had aunts. _Agatha had aunts_ \--

"Are they _alive_ ," Ricimer hissed like talons on steel, smoking out great billows of black from under his wing feathers.

"... Probably one of your aunts, but not the good one. At least we never heard of her death -- oh, but your aunt Serpentina did die, oh, what was it, about twelve or fifteen years ago, but she and your mother were estranged which is rather too bad because by all accounts she was a good sort, it was barely a few months before your uncle Barry brought you to us--"

Lilith elbowed Polly in her bulging, well-muscled ribs. Agatha pretended she hadn't seen that blatant case of daemon-touching. She was well-used to it by now, no matter how discreet they thought they were being...

So ridiculously, so adorably in love, her parents still were. So touching, so _safe_.

They'd lied to her all her life.

She sank back into her chair, closed her eyes. "I've got _family_ and I'm going to be a _spark_ ," she mumbled. Ricimer inserted himself between her arm and her face, nudged his head under her chin. She hugged him to her chest, pressed her face against his feathers. He ran hot now, smelled like smoke and sulphur.

Not like burned feathers, at least. 

Agatha smothered a sob. "My head is _ringing_."

"It'll be better once you have the locket back on," Polly said gently, and gave Ricimer's crest a lick. 

Agatha was out of her chair all at once, with her daemon ( _phoenix_ ) flapping free. "Are you _joking_ ," she asked, eyes bugging out. "I just told you it _hurts_ , and it makes me all, all slow and _stupid_ \-- I'm not putting it back on!"

"Agatha, _I_ just told you girls with the spark _disappear!_ " Lilith shouted back. "Do you really think we can hide a breakthrough in the middle of town?! No we can't!" She sighed out forcefully. "You should take a moment to calm down while Adam fixes it, and then the two of you can pack in case we need to leave tomorrow. I'm going to see Doctor Beetle. I love you, Agatha," she added quietly, and hugged her roughly. "I'm sorry it has to come out this way, but let's talk about it later, alright?"

Agatha made a sound that might have been taken as assent and watched her mother dodge around Polly's bulk and sweep out of the room, Hector taking flight to plunge through the window. 

He was probably going to fly overheard, far past the limits of a normal daemon's range, and it was only now that Agatha figured out it was because that way he could act as a lookout.

Polly and Adam never were farther than a dozen meters from each other, but she knew they were constructs, patchworks, and that meant they must have the same unnatural range as well, that came to people who had died and been brought back, or simply been brought to life from the hand of a spark. 

If Ricimer could fly off without her, she thought, shuddering. If he could -- then he probably wouldn't. What if he could never find her again? Without that tether between them...

The tether around her neck was a different matter entirely. She didn't want to lose the pictures, and she liked the design of the locket, its comforting weight. But whatever it was doing to her head could _burn_.

"They'll have to solder it back on," she muttered to Ricimer as they went up the stairs. Ricimer snorted, throwing flecks of quickly dying fire onto the wooden steps.

"I'll just melt it back off. I can do that now."

She was about to mention the burns to her neck when she thought of the obvious, sheet of leather protection idea. Oh, or maybe she could coat her skin in a fire retardant solution! There were a lot of chemicals in Adam's forge -- lots of acids for etching and the like. Surely she could... why, it seemed so elegant...

She sat for five seconds in between piled-up clothes.

It seemed barely five minutes before Hector landed at her windowsill, rattling the glass from the last of the impact, and screeched her awake.

\--

Five minutes to stuff a single backpack with clothes, money, a sewing set. To shove her feet into good solid boots and switch her thick greatcoat with the torn sleeve for three wooly pullovers and a granny's shawl.

Not a single book, not a memento. Not one of her little clank attempts, left spilled out on her workbench.

The old tunnels weren't dark, at least, not with Ricimer burning at the edge of every top feather. Adam hadn't had time to repair the locket's chain and now it sat in her skirt pocket, beating irregularly against her thigh as she jogged after Lilith.

"So you didn't even get to see doctor Beetle at all?" Ricimer asked from his perch on Polly's broad back.

"No," Lilith replied tersely. "He sent a runner."

"Because Baron Wulfenbach is in town?" Agatha asked slowly, to make sure she understood. "Why--"

"Because Baron Wulfenbach is _not our friend_ , Agatha." She paused, tapped at the stones, nodded. "Here. Adam, your turn."

Agatha and her mother stepped away, pressing against the wall to let Adam and Polly through, and Ricimer flapped back to Agatha's shoulder.

A few testing taps of Adam's hand, and then he set his shoulder to the wall; Polly pressed her head against his flank, his waist between her horns, and together they shoved.

The wall crumbled in a shower of bricks, bouncing off Adam and his daemon. They waited a few seconds to see if the roof would hold, then Hector arrowed out. A few seconds later he whistled the all-clear and Lilith and Agatha followed. 

They were out of the walls by at least three hundred meters -- nature still tame and feral experiments keeping well away, but Agatha couldn't help but shiver. The town defenses wouldn't cover them now if anything happened...

"Curse this whole day," Lilith muttered. "We didn't even have time to take _blankets_ or _food_."

"We've got money, though?"

"And who are we going to buy things off out here," Lilith replied with a sigh. "At least we can hunt, but we're going to be cold." 

"... Right," Agatha said, a little embarrassed. Her stomach had woken up in the tunnels; it was barely ten in the morning and already she felt ravenous. 

"We've got a cart... Or we had one last year, but someone might have found -- ah, there, under the brambles."

Putting on his work gloves, Adam started tearing out the tangles of thorns, but it didn't go fast. Agatha frowned, opening her little pocket knife and eyeing the roots doubtfully. Then, shrugging, she tried anyway, and promptly got pricked bloody for her trouble. "--Ow!"

Glaring balefully at the wall of thorns, Ricimer and Agatha were suddenly _very done_.

"Right! We're burning it down. Move back, Adam!" Ricimer ordered, and flew up toward the higher point, dropping a shower of sparks onto the brambles.

... Which... didn't catch... because they were pretty damp... " _More fire!_ " Agatha ordered.

"No!" three of her parents and assorted daemons yelled back, as Adam flailed his hands vigorously.

"Agatha, the cart is _also flammable_."

"--Oh. Right. Yes. But it's -- what wood is it, it should be _denser_ than _brambles_ \--"

"But it's damp, it won't catch and anyway how do I make myself hotter? I don't understand the mechanism yet--"

"Practice, you must _practice_ , I'm _sure_ you can, your temperature has been varying _a lot_ , there _must_ be a way to compensate for _emotional instability_ \--"

"Willpower? Will willpower _alone_ be enough?"

"Let's find out," they echoed as one, and turned to face the brambles bush, which... Had already been yanked halfway out and now formed a tunnel into the decrepit hut that hid the cart. 

Um.

"If you want to be _boring_ ," Agatha huffed as she climbed into the back, and pretended with haughty disdain not to see Lilith and Adam exchange fond smiles.

Polly slipped into the harness Adam had brought and started hauling them across the grass. Agatha found herself a seat that didn't shake too much and started daydreaming about shock absorbers for the wheels, and a retractable roof...

\--

She didn't get to nap very long this time either.

"Alright, that's far enough, people!"

The cart bounced to a stop; Agatha, jarred awake, tumbled forward and against Adam's back. Ricimer flailed in shock.

When she pushed herself up on her knees to look over the side of the cart she caught glimpses of monsters in a dozen different uniforms ghosting out of the trees; before them on the forest path they'd been following was a young man, apparently alone but for his massive griffin daemon. A long leonine back and tail ending in a fan of feathers, a green and golden eagle's head, and wings, half-spread, that Agatha could tell would span the length of the cart, Polly included.

He smiled the polite smile of the man with the superior weapon, perfunctory and not fussed.

"You're surrounded, as you can see, so if you could step off the cart..."

Adam and Lilith exchanged wild looks. Agatha...

"Why in the name of little wingnuts _should_ we?" she snapped, woozy from interrupted sleep and ravenously hungry. "Why are you even -- chasing us with, with, what _type_ of construct even _are_ you, wait, I'm sorry, I don't _care!_ "

The young man blinked, nonplussed. "Ah. Well, you see, I'm Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. Baron Wulfenbach's son. He's really quite--"

Adam snapped the straps holding Polly harnessed, fished a handful of bolts from his belt pouch. Suddenly there were knives flying from Lilith's hand. 

Agatha wasn't done gasping in shock when the griffin daemon flapped her wings and sent them all flying off course with the backdraft.

"Wait, wait," she gasped. " _Why--_ "

"Unit commander!" the younger Wulfenbach was snapping toward one of the, were they jaegermonsters? She'd never seen one in real life, they were, oh god -- "Restrain--"

"Jorgi!" Lilith yelled over him. " _Kill him!_ "

What? Who was Jorgi, who -- what -- Herr Wulfenbach was her age, or barely over it -- her mother wanted him _dead_? The monsters surrounding them --

There was a jaegermonster perched on the side of the cart. She hadn't seen him until he was there, perched like he'd always _been_ there, a gigantic maw and eyes lit up with feral glee, too-long arms and a back too slouched and --

"Back off!" she snarled, and swung her backpack right at his face.

She did not expect it to hit.

The monster landed on his back on the grass with an oomph. Agatha froze in confusion. "Ricimer...?"

"Oof," the monster muttered from the ground. 

When she turned toward the -- the Wulfenbach, she saw...

Stand-off, but why? Everyone had frozen into position, no one moved -- what was bringing them all to a stop, putting that tense look on the young man's face? She couldn't make sense of it. Was this Jorgi a friend, then? Maybe hidden in the woods, still? 

"They're not _looking_ at the woods," Ricimer muttered, and landed on her shoulder. 

Agatha stood. Looked around. 

Not a single jaegermonster daemon looked at anything but her. Not even the sleek black dog holding one of the griffin's wings in her teeth, or the boar trying to climb onto her back to flatten her down on the ground.

Oh. A brown-skinned jaeger in a vibrantly green uniform had a long clawed hand around the Wulfenbach's neck. Well, that explained some things. 

And gave her a hundred more questions, but.

"Mine apologies, sir," he was saying. "Just gotta check out sumtin. No harm done iffen ve iz wrong, jah?"

"Oh, do go ahead," the young man said with only a touch of sarcasm under his light tone. "Don't mind me."

"Jorgi," Lilith said urgently. "He _can't_ know--"

The green-wearing jaegermonster waved his hand without looking. "Jah, jah, in a minute. Besnik?"

The jaegermonster she had knocked over waved a hand from the grass, where he still lay sprawled -- then in a single kick, he was back up onto his feet and grinning terrifyingly wide. He produced a pair of thumbs-up, his rangy wolf daemon wagging her tail enthusiastically.

Now everyone was looking at her, daemons and jaegermonsters, both Wulfenbachs, her _parents_ \--

"Vot iz it hyu vants done -- mistress?"

Her head pulsed with not-quite-pain, dizzy and hot inside, tingling. Ricimer caught on fire all over with a little whomp of displaced air. 

"Don't put it on her," Lilith said with quiet intensity. "We can't afford for the Baron to know--"

"Why not?" the younger Wulfenbach asked, head tilted casually.

"--And the boy's planning something and the more we _dither_ \--"

"Enough!" Agatha shouted -- over her mother, over everyone, the jaegermonsters already eagerly converging on the griffin, over everyone and everything. "Enough, I can't _think_."

She stared at the young man. He stared back, singularly unafraid. Someone to be wary of, she thought, someone who believed himself dangerous. (A _spark_ with a _flying_ , _lion-sized raptor_ \-- damn straight he was dangerous.)

Lilith thought he would hurt her, or his father would. 

The jaegers called her mistress.

She... couldn't think about it properly; her mind shied away from chasing the implications, remembering years of pain.

" _Right_ ," she said. "We're not talking about it here. Anyone got some good rope?"

\--

"This is a little nostalgic," the Baron's son said when they loaded him and his well-trussed daemon into the cart. He seemed almost affable about the whole thing, his daemon lying quiet with her eyes heavy-lidded and her crest relaxed on her neck. Agatha threw them the side-eye and went to perch on the front bench. 

"I'm glad it's not horrifying or anything," she replied, nonplussed. "Um. Herr Wulfenbach."

"So far no one has laid hands on my daemon or tried to marry me off to an underworlder," he replied, smiling genially, "so it's even going pretty well. Miss...?"

"Oh -- Clay. Agatha and Ricimer Clay" She massaged her forehead. "My apologies for... Things."

"Hmm." His griffin flicked her crest, gave a long catlike blink. "Not Heterodyne?" 

Agatha gave him a long, unamused stare. 

"Do I _look_ like a Heterodyne to you."

"Are you saying you're not? Proof to the contrary--"

"I'm saying _two **hours** ago _I was an _office clerk_ because I was too _stupid_ to assist for the normal courses and now my _**pheasant daemon is a phoenix!**_ "

Panting she glared down -- oh, she was standing. Right. Whatever. The cart swayed under her and she grabbed for the side of it, seething. The whole platoon of jaegermonsters jogged on all sides of the cart, looking alert and bright-eyed, every single mobile ear turned her way.

"That doesn't sound normal," Wulfenbach the Feathered said, blinking placidly. "Are you sure you were settled? Certainly it'd be odd for it to come so late, but there's precedent..."

" _I am sure_ ," Ricimer hissed back, flaming.

"Agatha, please," Hector said in a quiet undertone. "Don't... Don't talk to him so much."

"Why, because we're going to have to execute him like _roadside thugs?_ " Gritting her teeth, she turned back to the young man. "We're not going to execute you like roadside thugs. We're going to find you a nice cave or a shepherd shelter and let you figure it out from there, I'm sure between her beak and your fingers you can manage something with the ropes, they're really insultingly basic..."

"Dey iz coated in dot rubber thingamajig dot meks it hard to cut," one of the jaegers informed her casually. "Else dey iz long gone already. Meester Gilgamesh iz a tricky one."

"--Oh. Is -- do you think he won't be able to cut it at all?" she asked, a little worried, as she leaned in to squint at the ropes.

Three different arms shot to pull her back -- Lilith's, Adam's and the green-wearing jaeger's. 

"Mistress, he _iz_ dangerous," he told her in a calm but firm undertone. "Und Hy vould not vorry, right now he iz mostly not getting free because he iz schtill in de middle ov de squadron."

"I wish you wouldn't call me mistress," she muttered. It felt odd. Not... _Bad_ odd, but. 

She was just a brain-damaged clerk who only got to attend university because Doctor Beetle had taken pity.

... Wasn't she.

... Why had he... Because she was...? But then... And why the locket -- uncle Barry.

Her uncle 'was a spark' in _deed_. Barry Heterodyne, half of the Heterodyne Boys, the other half being... being. Her _grandfathers_ had been sparks. Hah. Maternal aunts. Mother. 

Lilith and Adam were probably her father and uncle's creations. The famous Punch and Judy.

She was a spark.

The locket had been made to keep her doused.

She looked at her daemon. Ricimer met her eyes, wordless, for long seconds -- then he snorted like a sneeze, puffed up his feathers. They were going to have to get used to the smoke that came out whenever he did that.

"... Do you have any metal on you I can have," she asked the jaegers walking nearby. "Any... buckles you don't need, or -- medals, yes, thank you." (Her hands were rapidly filling.) "Any tools? Any pliers, or -- I don't need a screwdriver, a bad knife would do, I can just break the tip."

"What are you making?" Lilith asked her cautiously, eyeing the growing collection spilling into the bottom of the cart. Agatha shrugged.

"I have no idea, but apparently I'm a spark," she said, biting, "so I'm sure it's going to be interesting."

"I've got pliers," Herr Wulfenbach said, eyebrows up. "Also several other tools in my coat. And a couple of weapons, so be careful, but I don't mind if -- hey, whoa!"

One of the jaegers was... holding him upside-down by the feet and shaking. Um.

"Hyu tinks ve iz letting hyu trick de young mistress into putting her hands under hyu clothes," he growled, but almost lightly. 

"Vait, idiot, nothing vill fall if hiz coat iz schtill buttoned up. Lemme just... Oh hey, hyu iz right, Mihail! Deeeere ve go, Mistress."

The waistcoat and cotton shirt flapped open in turn. 

Another jaegermonster laughed, made a joke about... tools...

Agatha yelped, flushing. That was -- that was a _lot_ of flat stomach. 

Adam looked over his shoulder, then did a double-take, and flung a huge hand in front of Agatha's face. 

" _No undressing the captive spark for the Mistress!_ " Polly bellowed, braking with all four hooves and tossing her horns menacingly. Agatha flushed some more, Ricimer smoldering all over, his head tucked under his wing.

"Andrea, you rebutton this young man _right now_ ," Lilith hissed.

"Jah, mebbe she vants to do de undressing herself--"

"No I don't," Agatha squeaked, "I am _entirely alright_ not doing _any undressing_ or having undressing done on my behalf at _all_. That is a very good waistcoat and I see no reason not.. to... Is that an adjustable three-dimensional Bohemian wrench?"

"Uh huh," Herr Wulfenbach said, still upside down and quite red in the face but slightly more buttoned up.

Her fingers paused just before the tool, still caught in its waistcoat loop. "May I...?"

"Uh huh."

"Great! Thank you." She rummaged through the dismantled knives and epaulettes decorations and Wulfenbach devices at her knees. Hadn't she seen...

Ah. A _pocket watch_.

A perfect, lovely, sublime watch and its perfect, lovely, sublime casing, and all its perfect, lovely, sublime, _adorable_ little gears and springs...

She knocked it with the back of the Bohemian wrench. She didn't have a hammer, after all.

\--

There. It was done.

She was _faint with hunger_ , but it was done.

... Probably done.

"It's... not going to explode like the other ones... right?" Ricimer asked warily.

"I doubt it," Gilgamesh said, leaning in with interest. "It all seems very well-balanced." Agatha blinked up at him. Oh, right. he was still there.

She seemed to remember some pretty sound advice, too.

"Well, um. If... If you're sure." 

She stared down at the little pocket-watch clank. It lay on its back, unmoving. 

"Hyu won't know vot to fix iffen hyu never _start_ it, Mistress," the green-wearing jaegermonster pointed out. His dobermann daemon nodded, ears pricked forward with hunting interest. 

On the other side of it, Ricimer's beaked face and the griffin's massively bigger beak leaned down to peck cautiously at the legs. "Solid!"

"Good resonance. You kind of get a feel for the... The musicality of solid constructions after a while. Tap it again, see? A very clear chime."

"You guys want me to build you a carillon while I'm at it?" Agatha asked dryly, though she couldn't help but tilt her head into the sound, to hum quietly, trying to match the note.

"Oh, maybe afterwards?" the griffin said. Her face was all golden-tan, but the feathers toward her cheeks and her long lynx ears were edged in emerald green. "So far I have to say this is the nicest breakthrough project I've ever seen, though."

Snorting, Agatha tapped the little clank awake.

It sprang up on spider legs, executed a sharp turn to take on its surroundings, and immediately let out a long teakettle whistle that had all the jaegers flinching.

Then it sprayed them in sewing needles. Agatha maybe shouldn't have brought along her sewing kit. Yelping, she reared back -- then realized not a single needle had touched her. The jaeger's arm was in the way; when she pulled it down and turned it to see his sleeve was pinned to his skin. 

"Oh good little fishes, I'm sorry, let me -- _is that sewed in_."

"Vell, dot's not very bad," he said philosophically, even as she cringed. 

"No, I'll just, I'll cut the thread and pull -- _you roll back that measuring tape before I string you up with it and use you like a piñata._ "

The clank rolled back its measuring tape with a guilty little noise like schrllll _zing_.

" _Still_ the nicest breakthrough project we've ever seen," Gilgamesh said, amused. "Does it have, I don't know, death rays or bone saws installed in?"

The little clank popped out a Spanish coin on a rod, made it rotate hopefully. Gilgamesh pinched his lips. 

"... A good attempt. What, ah... What's the coin for?"

"Well I _didn't_ have any circular saws, did I," Agatha said grumpily. "It can do the job if needed, it’ll just... take a while. And not be very neat. And be... kind of... Ugh. I really need to eat."

Five clawed hands produced seven skewers of varied grilled meats, mushrooms and wriggling centipedes. Four of those were slapped away by Lilith with a firm " _Human stomachs!_ ". The rest Agatha took without a single thought, suddenly so dizzy with hunger that her mind was blank of anything else.

She devoured one skewer after another, took replacements whenever handed to her, bit and tore and swallowed without chewing. There was no salt but there were herbs galore, and hints of smoke. Then when she was done she licked her fingers clean, and cracked a skewer with her teeth to separate into fibers and scrub meat out from between her teeth.

"Last vun for de road, Mistress?" a jaegermonster asked, still holding a skewer of wild onions and mushrooms over Ricimer's gently flaming tail.

Agatha blinked -- then took it. She wasn't really hungry anymore, finally, but it smelled delicious.

She fell asleep with it still in her mouth.

\--

"... why are you still with us, knowing Klaus ... escaped a dozen times..."

"Well yes, but ... much more interesting here! ... sure my father won't miss me much..."

"Are you joking, he's on our trail this very moment, it doesn't matter that the jaegers are erasing it. ... don't know how he keeps finding..."

In the darkening sky, so far overhead it was like squinting at a spider's thread, something flickered faintly with sunset light.

"Wha'ss your father's daemon," she mumbled.

Gilgamesh blinked down at her, surrounded by cart planks and jaeger teeth. "Um. Dragon? That's fairly well-known."

"Mm. S' he ever been dead...?" 

Gilgamesh stared down at her, brown hair tumbling around his face. Adam and Lilith exchanged a look, then swiftly looked up. 

"--Ooh, _curse_ it, I've been doing the exact same thing, why didn't I--"

"Kites fly lower," Ricimer said through a yawn. "Usedta lookin' down."

"S'okay, though," Agatha continued. "Bitty-stabby will... Mnh."

\--

The next time she woke the cart had a shimmering canopy whose falling folds seemed to disappear whenever she caught a glimpse of the other side.

She was also missing one pullover, a sock, and her best handkerchief. Gilgamesh was shirtless under the waistcoat (oh, sweet lightning), and one of the jaegers was teary-eyed and hatless.

She patted his head awkwardly and promised as soon as she could convince Bitty-stabby, it would make him the gaudiest, shimmeriest magic hat there ever was.


End file.
